Faculty Profiles

Victor H. Narro

Victor Narro is a nationally known expert on the workplace rights of immigrant workers. He has been involved with immigrant rights and labor issues for many years, and is currently Project Director for the UCLA Downtown Labor Center. At the Labor Center, Narro’s focus is to provide leadership training and workshops for Los Angeles’s immigrant workers, and internship opportunities for UCLA students. Narro is a faculty member of the UCLA Department of Labor and Workplace Studies. He is also a lecturer for the Chicano/a Studies Department, where he teaches classes that focus on immigrant workers and the labor movement.

Narro was formerly Co-Executive Director of Sweatshop Watch. Prior to that, he was the Workers’ Rights Project Director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) where he was involved with organizing day laborers, domestic workers, garment workers, and gardeners. His work in multi-ethnic organizing led to the creation of the Multi-ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing Network (MIWON) in collaboration with KIWA, Garment Worker Center and Pilipino Worker Center.

Through Narro’s leadership, the day laborer project has grown into the National Day Laborer Organizing Network that today includes 40 community-based worker centers around the country. Over the past few years, Narro has worked with the Los Angeles Labor Movement on major immigrant worker organizing campaigns with janitors, hotel workers, laundry workers, sanitation workers, port truckers, and the CLEAN Carwash Campaign. Before his tenure at CHIRLA, Narro worked in the Los Angeles Regional Office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). From 2005-2010, Narro was appointed by L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa to the Police Permit Review Panel of the Los Angeles Police Commission, and he served on the Board of Commissioners of the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles in 2011.

Narro is the author of many law review and journal articles. He is co-author of “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws” in America’s Cities (2008), and “Wage Theft and Workplace Violations in Los Angeles” (2010). He is also co-editor of a recent book, Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy (Cornell University Press, 2010). More recently, Narro published Living Peace: Connecting Your Spirituality with Your Work for Justice (CreateSpace Publishing 2014).